Wednesday, January 13, 2010

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questions for floyd.........is there a difference between the conditioning and pre conditioning periods?

like night and day, my friend....if he's never seen it before, he better be seeing it now. being confined to the keep stalls, the noise, the people, the constant in and out over a period of day's wear a rooster very thin if he's not used to it. of course he has to be introduced to the work he'll be getting in the main keep as well.
some roosters can't even take coming into the cock house and fly pens without falling apart...let me tell you a story. it was 1986 and i had raised what i thought were a bunch of good cocks about 100 of them, these were the 1st cocks i'd raised really on my own, no help from no body.
i had a long tall dark red lemon neck, pea comb hatch cock, kinda like the pictures that oscar ust to have in his ad on page 1 of the game cock , that was just my favorite. i'd been hanging out at this pit called thackerville in oklahoma. they fought sunday derbies, the day after texoma. so alot of times the big boy's would bring their left over's or a special show of roosters there. i'm talk'n bout the big boy's, all the way from the duke, to jay goode, dan gray,the thompson boy's that owned copper state, all the boy's from texoma would come there. there was a very respected mexican man that fought there religiuosly, by the name of cecil orteaga, and they were holding a tribute in honor of him. well back to the hatch cock, i get a little side tracked at times. i'd put this cock in the fly pens several months earlier with the hope of fighting him. he was fine that day, well i go out the next morning and this cock is sitting on the roost with his hack feathers so high it was embarrassing. i thought well i'll pull that dunghill bastard's head off. i went in and got him and by the time i got him out side, i just couldn't do it. i'm talking about this s.o.b. was a speciman, so i put him back on his cord.well a week or to later, i tried it again. this time, he made it a couple day's.........same thing again. i go in to get him to kill him again, by the time i get outside,i'd changed my mind again. i mean this bastard looked just like the picture of the perfect fight'n rooster i had in my mind, and he could get it to boot. so back on the cord he goes.i was tell'n somebody about how high his hack feathers were, i said it reminded me of a parrot....henceforth...he was known as old parrot. well this happens a couple more times, but i finally get him all the way thru the keep, and now we get back to where we were earlier..........the cecil ortaega tribute at thackerville. well they start call'n numbers and call mine....guess what ? it's ol parrot....... i get the shortknife put on him and get to the scale....guess what else? there's cecil standing there with his rooster.......i'm meet'n cecil ortaega in his own tribute..uuuuaaa....here come the butterflies. anyway, we get in the pit ,bill'm up turn'm loose, and it looks like a small tornado start'n up in there, i'm talk'n these two are get'n after it. well we finally handle, cecil is cut to pieces, but not as bad as me. ol parrots right leg is cut plumb off, just as limp as a wrag, and he's got more holes in'm than a termite mound.we bring'm back to the line and ol parrot stand's on that good leg and hop's to meet cecil's rooster, then he get's a bill holt, sits down on that tail and turn's on the fan baby !!!!!!!! we handle them again.....pit'm again, this time cecil's rooster stands on his line and parrot hop's over to him, grabs holt and does a repeat of the previous pit'n. this time when they come loose cecil's stone dead!!!!!!!!! i don't think i've ever been much prouder. unless it was the time i whipped lee roy west brook in his tribute, but that's another story.
the moral is..........the prekeep teaches them alot, and you might learn something too if your lucky.......i know i did. the main thing is go slow...........go at their pace..........fight'm when THEIR ready, and remember, "their just chickens".
respect,
rick
p.s. i won the derby 5 straight......yeehaw